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Disney pricing out the middle class


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"People who were early adopters to this are used to a middle-class pricing model that just doesn't really work in the modern economy anymore. And they feel frustrated that they put a lot of loyalty into this brand, into this company and now they feel like they really have to stretch to keep up. And that's tough, but at the same time, if Disney's going to grow, it's got to go where the money is. "

This right here, is how we feel.  The thing is.... Disney might be following the money, but money does not always mean quality.  What I mean by this, is those of us who put loyalty into the brand (who helped to grow Disney to what it is today), we are the ones who want Disney to stay magical and we are the ones who will take care of the property.  Seems like the "new money" coming in, most of the time could care less about rules or respect.  They just want to throw money down and then act however they deem fit.  Combine that with the entitlement attitude of so many 20/30 year olds and the result is a lack in customer experience (for those who are trying to be respectful) and an increase in operating expenses as parks/resorts are being abused by money guests.

A year or two ago, I thought that Disney was pushing prices, to try and curb the crowds.  But, if that was the plan, it's not working.  My mom has said for years, that crowd problems started when the Annual Pass came out.  I never wanted to admit that I agreed with her, as we carried APs for years... but it is something to consider.  If you had to purchase a ticket, each time you entered the park, how many people would make multiple trips to Disney every year?  My guess is that number would decrease, possibly considerably.  The thing is... I doubt Disney would every pull back as those guests represent (possibly) millions in food and merchandise sales every year.

 

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22 minutes ago, twiceblessed....nacole said:

"People who were early adopters to this are used to a middle-class pricing model that just doesn't really work in the modern economy anymore. And they feel frustrated that they put a lot of loyalty into this brand, into this company and now they feel like they really have to stretch to keep up. And that's tough, but at the same time, if Disney's going to grow, it's got to go where the money is. "

This right here, is how we feel.  The thing is.... Disney might be following the money, but money does not always mean quality.  What I mean by this, is those of us who put loyalty into the brand (who helped to grow Disney to what it is today), we are the ones who want Disney to stay magical and we are the ones who will take care of the property.  Seems like the "new money" coming in, most of the time could care less about rules or respect.  They just want to throw money down and then act however they deem fit.  Combine that with the entitlement attitude of so many 20/30 year olds and the result is a lack in customer experience (for those who are trying to be respectful) and an increase in operating expenses as parks/resorts are being abused by money guests.

A year or two ago, I thought that Disney was pushing prices, to try and curb the crowds.  But, if that was the plan, it's not working.  My mom has said for years, that crowd problems started when the Annual Pass came out.  I never wanted to admit that I agreed with her, as we carried APs for years... but it is something to consider.  If you had to purchase a ticket, each time you entered the park, how many people would make multiple trips to Disney every year?  My guess is that number would decrease, possibly considerably.  The thing is... I doubt Disney would every pull back as those guests represent (possibly) millions in food and merchandise sales every year.

 

I think your mom was right, and not just for Disney.

We have been passholders with Busch/SeaWorld for years.

Parks were crowded on some days but manageable.

A few years ago Busch (not sure about Seaworld) started buy a day get the rest of the year free Fun Cards.  

It doesn't include parking, but what smart families did was purchase 1 AP that included parking and the rest got the fun cards.

This promotion really brought in the crowds.

And Disney cranking up the prices as you said, doesn't seem to have deterred the crowds.

It's going to get to the breaking point sooner or later where there are too many people squeezing into a finite space.

They need to expand the size of the parks to accommodate the crowds. I read an article that Disneyland is removing the majority of their planters, outside seating, and other "obstructions" to make more room for the anticipated crowds that will be visiting for Star Wars.

And would building another DisneyWorld elsewhere in the US would siphon off that many people, or they would still want to go to Orlando because of Disney and all the other attractions?

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13 minutes ago, Beckers said:

We have a trip booked in Nov pending Brian’s time off being approved and I’ve got to tell you, the more I think about the cost the more I’m like wth are we thinking? It’s a crap ton of money and sure we will have fun but will we really have $5,000 worth of fun?

If this was a once in a lifetime trip, $5000 would probably worth it to some people for a family vacation.

For a yearly or multiple times a year trip that's a lot of $$ (at least to me).

But then again I'm cheap...

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7 hours ago, Beckers said:

We have a trip booked in Nov pending Brian’s time off being approved and I’ve got to tell you, the more I think about the cost the more I’m like wth are we thinking? It’s a crap ton of money and sure we will have fun but will we really have $5,000 worth of fun?

$5,000 is usually my savings goal from Christmas work to fund our camping habit for the year, put that money towards the camper your hubby asked me to check out.

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1 hour ago, dblr....Rennie said:

$5,000 is usually my savings goal from Christmas work to fund our camping habit for the year, put that money towards the camper your hubby asked me to check out.

If we get the camper, we’ll cancel Disney. That $5k doesn’t even included air! 

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2019 is going to be the first year we skip in a very long time. We may go in 2020 but time will tell.  I started looking at the cost and while my trip doesn't hit $5,000.00 it gets close enough for me to look at what we have been spending on Disney trips and realize it's costing a lot more then it used to. I do think Disney is starting to price out to many people. I may be out in a few years my self if the price keeps going up. 

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10 hours ago, Beckers said:

If we get the camper, we’ll cancel Disney. That $5k doesn’t even included air! 

Sounds like a plan and remember camper show season is starting, like I told your hubby just send me a blank signed check and I will get you all set up...ez peezy!!!!!

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13 hours ago, LONE-STAR said:

2019 is going to be the first year we skip in a very long time. We may go in 2020 but time will tell.  I started looking at the cost and while my trip doesn't hit $5,000.00 it gets close enough for me to look at what we have been spending on Disney trips and realize it's costing a lot more then it used to. I do think Disney is starting to price out to many people. I may be out in a few years my self if the price keeps going up. 

Us too.  We are trying for a couple of nights at the Fort (but just 3 and no park visits).  Even just typing it, it's hard to admit.  We love the Fort and our memories...but this year we've had to fill in our pool and begin to address the drainage issued in our yard (from a problem that the county created but won't fix :angry:), we replaced the A/C, 1/2 the plumbing under the house and now we need a new roof.  PLUS, the bank my husband works for was bought out and after all the "this won't hurt you (financially)"  talk, we're learning that it will in fact hurt us...quite a bit :( He's now looking for a change but... that's hard and not really what he wants to do.

 All of that means that Disney is out... as is our planned trip back home to WA.  

 

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The author is pretty accurate in their conclusions. That business strategy isn't unique to Disney though. I spent most of my career working for a large computer company. It was in the late 80's to early 90's when I started hearing a lot of talk about needing to help our customers identify and go after demographic groups with a lot of disposable income. The ability to identify customers with high amounts of disposable income is what drove a significant part of our large database and data management product development. This same principle also led to the company's entry into analytics and customer management software. It has only gotten worse with a company's ability to target customer's down to their home address. I don't agree with the strategy and feel there are better ways to target the broad customer base but I don't teach in the business schools nor run these companies.

Another factor that ties into this is the change that started in the 60's where companies and investors started down the path that the only thing that mattered was shareholder value and ever increasing revenue. This practice pretty much hit its stride by the early 90's. It's reached the where earnings per share and stock price are the only measures Wall Street cares about where  missing by a penny can crash a stock even if that miss had positive societal impact. I believe this way of thinking is what largely drove the disposable income strategy. As someone who is fully invested I would prefer to see a better balance where eking out that last penny per share isn't as important as a better balance between shareholder, customer and employee needs. However mine is a minority opinion in the US.  

Back to Disney. Sadly I don't see them changing until they start seeing negative revenue effects from their strategy or large shareholders demand a change. As much as we like Disney, Rene and I have decided they have lost us in the cost to value ratio. While not Disney there are plenty of other places to visit in this country without the lines and wall to wall people. Places where we can spread our money around to local businesses where the money will be of better use. 

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23 minutes ago, twiceblessed....nacole said:

s too.  We are trying for a couple of nights at the Fort (but just 3 and no park visits).  Even just typing it, it's hard to admit.  We love the Fort and our memories...but this year we've had to fill in our pool and begin to address the drainage issued in our yard (from a problem that the county created but won't fix :angry:), we replaced the A/C, 1/2 the plumbing under the house and now we need a new roof.

We've been going through this the last few years on our 18 year old house. Painting the house, new downstairs heat pump, new roof and new well pump/pressure tank/switch. It seems like nobody will even come look for less than $5K. I try to look at it on the positive side that when we sell the house in a few years everything will be new so we can get more out of it and recoup some of the cost.

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40 minutes ago, twiceblessed....nacole said:

Us too.  We are trying for a couple of nights at the Fort (but just 3 and no park visits).  Even just typing it, it's hard to admit.  We love the Fort and our memories...but this year we've had to fill in our pool and begin to address the drainage issued in our yard (from a problem that the county created but won't fix :angry:), we replaced the A/C, 1/2 the plumbing under the house and now we need a new roof.  PLUS, the bank my husband works for was bought out and after all the "this won't hurt you (financially)"  talk, we're learning that it will in fact hurt us...quite a bit :( He's now looking for a change but... that's hard and not really what he wants to do.

 All of that means that Disney is out... as is our planned trip back home to WA.  

 

2018 was expensive for us as well new siding on the house, new roof, then had it painted. Then the camper got totaled, owed more then it was worth. Swore I was done with campers. Then went to disney stayed in a resort and told my wife i would rather stay home then stay in a motel again. Then bought another camper 2 months later. Then we lost one of our biggest contracts at work. All that said we went to Disney a total of 3 times and had a blast.  Except spring break it was so packed I swore I would never go back during that time. But the Fort was great. 

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9 hours ago, keith_h said:

We've been going through this the last few years on our 18 year old house. Painting the house, new downstairs heat pump, new roof and new well pump/pressure tank/switch. It seems like nobody will even come look for less than $5K. I try to look at it on the positive side that when we sell the house in a few years everything will be new so we can get more out of it and recoup some of the cost.

We would say that too... except we only thought we'd be in this house for 5 years and it's been over 15.  Tom's convinced we'll die here :))

 

9 hours ago, LONE-STAR said:

2018 was expensive for us as well new siding on the house, new roof, then had it painted. Then the camper got totaled, owed more then it was worth. Swore I was done with campers. Then went to disney stayed in a resort and told my wife i would rather stay home then stay in a motel again. Then bought another camper 2 months later. Then we lost one of our biggest contracts at work. All that said we went to Disney a total of 3 times and had a blast.  Except spring break it was so packed I swore I would never go back during that time. But the Fort was great. 

Being the grown up.  Man, when did that happen?  It's highly overrated :P

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2 hours ago, twiceblessed....nacole said:

We would say that too... except we only thought we'd be in this house for 5 years and it's been over 15.  Tom's convinced we'll die here :))

We've been here the full 18. Rene should be retiring in the next few years and our plan is to downsize. No more two story transitionals with multilevel dormers and the like. If I can't can't reach everything on the outside from a 14 ft utility ladder the house will be too big. 

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16 hours ago, keith_h said:

We've been here the full 18. Rene should be retiring in the next few years and our plan is to downsize. No more two story transitionals with multilevel dormers and the like. If I can't can't reach everything on the outside from a 14 ft utility ladder the house will be too big. 

I understand that.  We actually have a ranch and I love it, but our kiddos are young (7 and almost 12) and they keep asking for a "stair house".  This mama keeps saying... no :))

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24 years ago we bought a small ranch.  It was tight quarters for a few years until the kids left.  I kept telling my wife it was our retirement home.  Next year I’ll be retiring and FWGirl and I are very happy we stuck with the plan.

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3 hours ago, ftwildernessguy said:

24 years ago we bought a small ranch.  It was tight quarters for a few years until the kids left.  I kept telling my wife it was our retirement home.  Next year I’ll be retiring and FWGirl and I are very happy we stuck with the plan.

We also had a small ranch where we raised our boys and lived there for 24 years. However, we didn't stay with the house. We upgraded the old house several times, BUT finally came to the realization that the area was going down in value, not up, and also it was not conducive to being an "accessible" house without major changes. So we built new in 17. We actually went up in size, but not more rooms. Still have a ranch, but on a slab so no steps, and we have an accessible shower and all the doors are wheelchair width. If it wasn't for those issues, our old house would have been just fine.

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17 hours ago, ftwildernessguy said:

24 years ago we bought a small ranch.  It was tight quarters for a few years until the kids left.  I kept telling my wife it was our retirement home.  Next year I’ll be retiring and FWGirl and I are very happy we stuck with the plan.

I’m thinking “ranch” like horses, etc and I’m like where is there a ranch in your area ?? 😂

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1 hour ago, Beckers said:

I’m thinking “ranch” like horses, etc and I’m like where is there a ranch in your area ?? 😂

I do have 3 dogs and I call it the Cadillac Ranch on Facebook 

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